Thursday, March 08, 2007

Liberals In Trouble In Latest Poll

The latest Decima poll has the Liberals 6 points behind the Conservatives, 29% to 35%. The poll confirms that the trend is continuing with the Conservatives gaining support among women and city-dwellers.

The CP story describes the one silver lining for the Liberals: the surge in support in Quebec. The poll puts the Bloc at 31%, the Liberals at 29%, and the Conservatives at 17%. If this is the Liberal's silver lining, then they are in trouble. The Quebec numbers are likely getting a boost from the current Quebec provincial election where the Provincial Liberals are in the lead and the PQ is doing poorly. Couple this with the fact that Quebec has no Provincial Conservative party, PC or CPC, and thus are not experiencing the same boost and you can see that if the Liberal support in Quebec more closely resembles the pre-election CROP polls, the national numbers are skewed by as much as a negative 1-2% for the Libs and a positive 1-2% for the Cons and you can see that this poll confirms the 36% to 27% result decima produced last week.

It will be interesting to see what the polling results will be a month or so after the Quebec election and the Provincial Liberal boost their federal cousins are enjoying wears off. Although that poll might come on election night.

It's interesting in the Quebec numbers, where Harper isn't even pulling to where the ADQ is. The Liberals may be getting a boost from their provincial cousins but I wonder if its blowback from the ATA debate. Whereas the Conservatives have gained in Ontario because of the issue, it may have cost them in Quebec. Likewise, Dion's "courageous" stand (according to BQ member Serge Menard) may have boosted his standing in la belle province. The real shocker is the low BQ numbers. While it could be argued that its due to the poor PQ performance, there is not the same "brand confusion" you see between provincial and federal Liberals. We'll have to wait for the budget and the response by the Quebec population, but Harper wouldn't want to go to an election with these numbers. Second, there is a bizarre "Liberal bounceback" phenomenon that we have seen several times in Ontario. After something bad happens to the Liberals, the polls drop like a rock and then return to their original position after a couple of weeks (maybe people forget). This was seen most recently (several times) during the sponsorship scandal. Either way, it should be interesting to watch the next few weeks.

Pretty good analysis. I have been surprised at how resiliant the Liberal brand has been over the last few years. The only thing I would add to your analysis is that I think the national pollsters have been consistently under-estimating the Quebec numbers for the CPC. I find CROP and Leger are much more reliable to get a snapshot into the minds of Quebeckers.